


little red and the woodsman

by Gift_Giving



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alive Allison, Alternate Universe - Canon, Episode: s03e06 Motel California, F/M, Getting Back Together, POV Scott McCall, it's its own warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-28
Updated: 2014-05-28
Packaged: 2018-01-26 23:10:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1705946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gift_Giving/pseuds/Gift_Giving
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Little Red Riding Hood and coup de foudre are both French in origin, but usually aren't found together. Scott and Allison have always been good at making their own rules, though, and they can rewrite the story if they want.</p>
            </blockquote>





	little red and the woodsman

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Stisaac](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stisaac/gifts).



> Is it obvious that I'm terrible at titles and summaries? I hope it doesn't reflect on the story. 
> 
> Anyway, this is a super late present for my roommate and awesome friend Laura, so here you go.

The summer before junior year, Scott fixes himself—he becomes a better student, a better son, a better friend. He spends almost every waking moment with Stiles or Lydia or a lot times both, since she seems to get some almost sadistic pleasure out helping him study. Still, when she doesn’t pick the phone that late Monday night before the first day of school, he doesn’t think anything of it.

But then her car is level to Stiles’ at a red light at a deserted road, and Allison is in the front seat.

(she doesn’t know when she’s coming back, lydia says carefully the day she leaves. her dad decided to take sabbatical in france.

            they’re over her house, the three of them, in her pool when she breaks the news. oh, scott says, but the school year isn’t done yet, so he adds, why?

            of course, she’s allison’s best friend, lied to for a year or not, so she knows. he thinks she shouldn’t have had to go through that, that getting wrapped up in their bullshit was just unfair. i’ll put it in boy terms, she answers. think natasha from _the avengers_ : mental recalibration.

            gerard wormed his way inside allison’s head and it’s all scott’s fault. he wonders how many people blame him for it)

Lydia speeds through the red light, which is good because Stiles refused too, and Scott breathes easier. There’s a note of finality to the whole thing, more than just the summer ending, and he managed to go a whole four months with no texts or calls. He can make it for longer, if she wants. If she needs. Yeah. If she needs it. Werewolves exist. So can fate.

Apparently so can suicidal deer.

Though the girls aren’t hurt, the car’s totaled and the animal dead. Scott’s too afraid to touch Allison when he asks, “You’re okay?”

It’s a stupid question. Of course she isn’t. A deer just smashed through the windshield of the car she was in. Still, she nods, and oh man, this does _not_ feel like a good way to start the school year. “I’m okay,” she answers, and behind her Stiles is comforting Lydia, who’s freaking out, already moving to call his dad.

Allison’s hair is shorter, her face thinner. Some of the makeup on her left eye is smudged like she rubbed it and she smells afraid. Probably less than a day back and she’s already had a near death experience.

Sometimes Scott wishes he could just gather up all his friends and hide them from the world.

 

 

When the next day comes, the seat in front of him is vacant and she’s obviously reluctant when she takes it. Ms. Blake is hot, in that teacher kind of way, and sends everyone a text, which is creepy. She sets him on edge, but new teachers have ever since he got turned. Allison is in front of him and her short hair smells like her favorite strawberry shampoo mixed with the metal of her arrowheads that sticks to her fingers like powered sugar.

Midway through the class, when the teacher’s back is turned, she slides him a note he grabs out of her hand too fast. It reads, in her choppy handwriting, _Can we talk?_

His heartbeat speeds up, throat constricts. He almost breaks the tip of his pencil as he writes back, _When?_ , but before he can pass it forward, the principle enters and Ms. Blake says, “Scott McCall? Come here please.”

He stuffs the note into his binder and doesn’t have the chance to give it back. Mom’s called him out on his first day of school, which means it must be important in a bad way, and Allison has his number if she really wants to talk.

 

 

Scott doesn’t make it long through the party before he steps outside to call back Allison.

“Sorry, I didn’t have it near me,” he says, frustrated that after four months he still always has time for her. “I’m with Stiles. What’s up?”

She’s in a car, obviously, when she answers, “ _Can we meet up? Lydia and I have something we need to show you._ ”

Lydia and I.

Lydia and—

But Lydia. He feels his heart sink. He should learn to listen to Stiles more. “Yeah, sure,” he says. “Where? When?”

“ _I guess tomorrow is okay if you’re busy. We can talk in school._ ” There’s a pause before she adds, “ _This isn’t about class._ ”

Probably class means the note, he figures, and scuffs the toe of his shoe against the sidewalk. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then.” He doesn’t want to seem too clingy when they aren’t even dating.

“ _Yeah. Tomorrow. Have fun with Stiles._ ”

They exchange goodbyes and he hangs up. Then he takes a deep breath, and heads back inside. He returns to a disappointed Stiles and broken glass.

 

 

What Mrs. Argent did to him—restricting his respiratory system through vaporized wolfsbane in a tiny room—is a hunter’s form interrogative torture, apparently.  “I don’t understand how you can even look at her anymore,” Derek says later when Scott tries to convince him to listen to the girls again, “let alone keep up your little teenage crush.”

“You banged up me pretty bad once or twice,” he answers with a shrug. “We’re still friends.”

Being friends with Derek Hale isn’t something Scott ever expected, but he’s not complaining because (he’s half unconscious, dead weight only, and derek picks him up to get him out of there even when this isn’t what enemies are supposed to do) the guy might be jerk, but he’s not bad in the long run. He’s not Peter. “Yeah,” Derek says. “I’m not saying you’re smart for that, either.”

Scott’s not sure if he actually believes Allison, or if he wants to. “You have to at least admit how symmetrical it is was kind of weird.”

“Go back to Stiles, Scott, if you want to keep playing Nancy Drew,” Derek tells him. “Just don’t involve me. If you want to the work with something concrete, though, stick around and help me with Isaac.”

He sticks around, because he needs to make sure Isaac is okay, too.

 

 

Getting the shit beaten out of him is nothing new, and he thinks he could’ve withstood it if Allison hadn’t broken the mountain ash seal. Still, all she was doing was trying to protect him, so Derek has no right to put his hands on her. “Don’t touch her!” Scott shouts, running out the vault before the two of them can really fight.

“What were you thinking?”

“That I had to do something!”

There’s blood still running down his chin from internal injuries that haven’t stitched themselves up yet, but Scott doesn’t care. “She saved our lives.”

Derek just rounds on him, all around angry and not caring who he takes it out on. “Yeah,” he says, before looking back at her, “and what do you think they’re going to out there? Do you have any idea what we just set free?”

“You want to blame me?” Allison answers, stepping back. “Well, I’m not the one turning teenagers into killers.”

Except that Boyd never killed anyone. Neither did  Erica. Not even Isaac, who’s probably the most violent out of all of them. If that’s what she thinks of them, he wonders what she thinks of him.

But then Derek says, “No. No, that’s just the rest of your family,” and Scott knows he’s screwed.

(he wakes up on a cold veterinarian table, still having trouble getting air into his lungs, and stiles is slumped at his side. derek got you out, his friend says. jackson’s gone, but we got you out.

            what happened? scott asks, and everyone explains.

            then derek tells him, your girlfriend’s not going to be happy much longer.

            why?

            because i bit her mom to get her off of you, derek says.

            it was an accident, derek says)

Allison stands her ground. “I made mistakes,” she says. “Gerard was not my fault.”

“And what about your mother?”

Inside him, all the injuries finish healing up. “What do you mean?” she asks, and Derek looks at him. Then, like a dick, leaves it up to him, too. “What does he mean, Scott?”

Four months ago Scott avoided telling her this for a reason. Now Derek walks away to find Erica’s body. “Your mom,” he answers, because there’s no getting around it now. “The night of the rave, she hit me with her car so I got knocked out and brought me into this room where she released wolfsbane gas into the air. The bite—I was dying. Derek found me, he’s an Alpha, I’m a Beta. He got protective. It was an accident.”

(it was an accident, derek says)

There’s a moment where Allison doesn’t do anything. Then she says, “She tried killing you,” and it isn’t a question. Scott nods. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Without looking at her, he answers, “I’ll tell you everything, anything you what, but right now—”

“Just tell me why.”

It’s the same tone she used when they were locked in the school that night with Peter, when he was still trying to get Scott to kill everyone. “I—I couldn’t,” he says, because she deserves it now. “Allison, I couldn’t let that be the last memory you had of her.”

Then Derek’s back, Erica’s body in his arms. In death she reverts from this fierce werewolf with that extra boost of confidence to the epileptic girl he saved once as she fell from a rock wall. Her hair gathers in blonde clumps, straw on her head, and there’s blood on her face. Scott’s used to death, lives in a world of it, and there’s this horrible moment where he thinks she looks like a scarecrow with her stuffing falling out. Allison has tears slipping down her face.

Derek doesn’t say anything. Scott follows him without a word.

 

 

Hurting people, getting them angry—that’s not something Scott likes to do. But now the twins forced his friend to shift, which also hurt Allison. Just because he doesn’t like to do something doesn’t mean he can’t do it.

The twins are pissed as he wanted them to be and Allison is standing close behind him, laughing quietly at their distress. Her arm’s bandaged, covered with Neosporin and hydrogen peroxide, and Isaac still feels bad. But they’re on school grounds and here, it doesn’t matter what kind of werewolf you are. Scott’s on the same level as them, and his first countermove worked.

 

 

There’s an arrow outside the school door, right where Isaac got Boyd and Cora to turn back.

Goddammit.

 

 

This is a bad idea, he tells himself, but goes to see Allison anyway. Her bedroom’s new, and different from her old one, less colorful with more blank walls. He wonders if this is supposed to represent something, like cleared headspace or whatever.

“Maybe it’s from the archery team,” she says, face blank when she looks at the arrow, but her heartbeat skips. He can hear lies, and sometimes that sucks.

With a smile, he says, “We don’t have an archery team. And even if we did, they probably wouldn’t be using military grade, armor piercing, titanium arrowheads.” She nods, lips pressed together, and he flicks the metal. “I looked it up.”

Still, she’s seems to have forgotten the whole he can hear lies thing (you have tell, too, scott). “Maybe it’s one of my father’s.”

“I thought you two had some kind of agreement where you both stayed out of this.” Really, he’d prefer it if she stayed out of this. It would be safer that way. The help’s appreciated, but he prefers her alive, broken up or not.

(you don’t need to date someone to be in love with them)

“Is that why you came here?” she asks. “To tell me to stay out of this?”

Even though it’s a lie of his own, he answers, “No.”

She leans forward to grab a sweater from the end of her bed. “Well, I can take care of myself,” she says, which is nice and all until an Alpha comes after her.

“I know,” he says, and at least that’s true. He doesn’t like lying, and especially not to her. “These guys, Allison—if you haven’t noticed, they’re pretty terrifying.” Since she and Derek don’t like each other, he spares the detail about his friend getting speared through the back with a pole. “They have some serious advantages like superhuman strength.”

As she stops fidgeting with the sweater, she says, “You’re pretty strong and I can handle you.”

That’s because he lets her. “Me?”

“You don’t think I can handle you?”

“I didn’t say that.”

Except that is what he said, and they both know it. She protests, smile complete with dimples on her face, and he rationalizes. All he wants is for her to be safe. It would be nice if she wanted that, too.

 

 

Derek is dead.

Derek is _dead._

And it’s all his fault.

The giant scratch on his side keeps bleeding, not healed yet, and in a way he doesn’t care because Derek’s dead (body twisted against the escalator, black blood spilling down the rubber covered steps, and scott could have grabbed him) and it’s all his fault. Somehow, Stiles thinks it’s still okay to quiz him on vocab words for SAT prep. Originally, Scott started up learning new words like this just to distract himself from losing Allison.

Right now he wants Allison. Really, _really_ wants Allison.

He loses some coherency after a while, sometime between stopping Boyd and finding out Ennis is alive, and waking up in a sleazy bathroom with Allison right in his face. She smells like fear again, and his blood. There’s no shining moment where her voice dragged him out of darkness. She might be able to pull him out of shifting, but apparently the same can’t be said for almost dying (almost accidently, he files this away somewhere in the back of his mind).

“It’s okay,” she says, fingers drifting across the stitches in his side and looks at him with so much relief it actually breaks his heart. She’s seventeen, she shouldn’t know how to stitch up skin. She shouldn’t know how to shoot teenagers full of arrows, either.

As his mind slowly starts to piece things back together, he asks, “Did you do that?” and she nods. “Nice.”

When she laughs, the sound is breathless and kind of broken. “Can you stand?”

She gets him to his feet, helps him pull on his shirt that’s actually one of Stiles’. He wonders if she loves him as much as he still loves her.

 

 

For a while, Scott naps on the bus. The girls are here now, too, and Lydia and Stiles sit in front of him discussing human sacrifices like that’s normal because for them it is. “You know,” Allison says from the seat beside him, “if he really is dead, it’s not your fault.”

(derek’s falling. scott’s right there, in perfect distance to grab him.

            he doesn’t reach out in time)

The sentiment is appreciated, but unnecessary. “Look,” he says, “remember that whole thing we talked about where I wasn’t accusing you of being there and if you were there, you shouldn’t be?” She nods, smiles with dimples. “Thanks for not listening.” Her eyebrows raise in surprise. “What?”

“Just looking at your eyes,” she answers, and maybe she does.

 

 

Nothing good ever comes out of being an Alpha, says the little voice in the back of his head, and Scott closes his eyes, presses his hands over his ears. You have to be a murderer to be an Alpha.

His eyes are red—Alpha red. There’s a whole pack of Alphas here, all murderers with bright red eyes. All murderers and even Derek’s a murderer because he had to kill Peter. And Peter is Scott’s Alpha, so what does that make him? He’ll turn out the same way, arrogant and psychotic and biting some poor asthmatic kid in the woods.

(all good stories start with wolves and teenagers with red hoods)

Yes, you’ll be like Peter, says the little voice. And what did Peter do?

Scott opens his eyes, and red looks back at him in the mirror.

 _He burned_.

 

 

The Darach still isn’t really out of his head (or at least that’s what stiles says because these aren’t your thoughts, scott, you aren’t like this, insists his best friend) and he’s covered in gasoline, so they can’t fix him. Instead Allison and Stiles get into an argument about which one should clean him off so they can put a match to him before Lydia intervenes and says Allison scuffed herself up on the dirt, too.

There is literally nothing sexual about this shower. Allison waves away his hands and scrubs shampoo into his hair. “You’re going to be fine,” she says softly, in the same voice she used back in the bathroom at the rest stop. “Okay? We just need to make sure you don’t have anything left on you.”

“I’m good,” he says and he can’t smell her, everything muted under the heady scent of gasoline. “Really. I’m better.”

She ignores him and instead grips the back of his neck, forcing him to look at her. “Don’t make us watch you burn alive, Scott,” she says. “Don’t make _me_.”

Maybe if he’d picked a different way, a faster way. He drops his head to her shoulder, brown eyes closed, and tries to breathe her in as she keeps scrubbing the shampoo out of her hair. “I don’t want to be an Alpha,” he tells her. “I don’t want to burn.”

“An Alpha? Scott, you’re a Beta.”

For now, says the little voice in the back of his head, and her wet hair tickles against his cheek.

 

 

It’s like something out of movie, her body pressed close against his and coats gathered in behind him, blocking him from backing up. She’s not wearing heels, so she’s shorter than she usually is when he sees her lately, and she puts her finger to his lips. Right behind this flimsy, sleeted door is her dad, who on some level wants to shoot him with a wolfsbane laced bullet.

Oh. Joy.

Suddenly she whispers, “What are you doing?” and he tries to look anywhere but her.

“Nothing,” he answers. Last time he was inside one of her closets, he was alone, and it was Kate Argent, not her father who was outside.

There’s a smile in her voice when she says, “Part of you is doing something.”

As if this weren’t bad enough. He just wants to die from embarrassment. “Oh, sorry,” he says, and means it. “I—I don’t really have control over that.”

“It’s okay, I’ll just turn around.” She twists her body and her fingers press inside against the door (and once upon a time was kate argent explaining to her little niece, your family shoots your boyfriend’s species for living), and he gets hit by the need to just see her face again.

After all, four months is a pretty long time. “Allison,” he says, “that’s worse.”

She laughs, puts her hand over her mouth to stifle her sound, and turns back around. Then suddenly her smile is slipping from her face and she’s leaning forward, eyes closing. There’s about half a second where he debates on stopping it, on being the moral high ground, before he thinks that maybe there’s a chance she really wants this and—

Her lips are soft, with residue sour sugar left over from some candy she must’ve had earlier that day. And that chance might’ve been right after all, because her arms slid up, fingers gripping at the collar of his jacket, and he buries a hand in her hair.

            (allison argent is broken hearts and stardust and strawberry shampoo)

 

 

Even though he didn’t know Boyd very well, it still hurts that he’s dead. Erica being dead hurts the same way. Now it’s hours after that, hours after Deaton’s saved, and Scott sits on the end of Allison’s bed. “Was that just a kiss?” he asks. “Or do you—”

“No,” she says, and her bottom lip catches between her teeth. “No, I’d like to…you know, if you want.”

His heart’s pounding so fast he’s surprised she can’t hear it with her human ears. “I want to,” he tells her. “Believe me, I want to.”

She leans forward and kisses him again.

(stiles used to laugh and say they were romeo and juliet except no, not really, because his family doesn’t hate hers. their stupid teenage romance of bumbling around in the dark, stuffing letters in each other’s lockers, kissing away afternoons when parents weren’t home.

            stiles used to laugh and say there were a one sided romeo and juliet, but scott would beg to differ. dying with each other isn’t as romantic as living)

Werewolves exist. So does fate. And so does Allison Argent, his amazing, beautiful, impossible girlfriend.

 

 

“So you and Allison.”

“Yup. So me and Allison.”

Stiles claps him on the back. “Knew you had it in you, buddy.”

 

 

After finding Tara’s dead body, Scott brings Allison home and thinks it says something about how desensitized he is that he just found a corpse and is still managing to appreciate the feeling of her arms around him. “My dad knows something,” she says once they’re upstairs in her apartment, tucked away in her room and Mr. Argent is gone for another few hours. “I’m going to stay tomorrow and see if I can find anything out.”

There’s no point in telling her to come to school, that there’s safety in numbers. And he can’t risk absences to be here and really needs to keep an eye on Stiles’ dad, who’ll be there. “Just be careful,” he says. “Call me if anything goes wrong.”

“I can take care of myself,” she says, and kisses him. “I’ll wait until he’s gone and keep knives under the blankets.”

(if he’s little red riding hood, then she’s the woodsman there to carve him out)

“Well, don’t cut yourself.”

She laughs and so he kisses her again. They just found a dead body and they’re trading kisses in her bedroom. “I’ll be careful,” she promises. “And as much as I hate to say this, you should probably go before he gets back. Which will be soon, because I doubt it’ll be long before he finds out about the officer.”

It takes three more kisses before he’s out the front door.

 

 

After school, Scott meets up with Allison, bringing Isaac with him for backup and together they figure out where the next sacrifice will be.

They aren’t expecting Mr. Argent to be there to defend them. They aren’t expecting to find their teacher either. “Scott, you can get there faster on your own,” Allison says. “Lydia’s there. Just—we’ll meet up with you.”

Separating now doesn’t feel like such a good idea, especially when he can smell the tension between her and her father (thick, like gunpowder, clinging to all of them, and isaac is usually tense to begin with.

            this feels like a set-up)

but Allison is right, and Scott doesn’t like the idea of Lydia on her own. “Keep them safe,” he tells Isaac, and runs off alone.

 

 

“Are you okay with this?”

They’re getting ice for the bathes when she asks. “I can’t say I’m thrilled,” he answers, “but if it’s to find our parents, I don’t care what I have to do. Why?”

Her touch is light on his arm. “Deaton’s making it sound like you can only come back if you want to.”

(gasoline dripping down his hair and catching on his eyelashes. his eyes are red and no one really needs you, scott, says the little voice that doesn’t sound like jennifer’s. you’re better off as nobody.

            the voice might not have sounded like jennifer’s, but it did sound suspiciously like his own)

“I’ll be fine,” he tells her, and smiles. “She’s out of my head.”

Then Allison’s wrapped around his neck and the bag of ice falls heavy to the floor. She’s scared and she’s sad and her heart is thudding fast in her chest. “Come back, Scott,” she says. “I promise to come back if you will.”

He swears that he will, and hugs her tight. Later he gets paired with Deaton as his father figure and Allison with Isaac because he found it in his heart to forgive her, and before they go down, he looks at her and says, “I love you.”

“I love you, too.” Her fingers dance on the edge of the tub.

“By the way,” Stiles says from his right, “if I don’t make it back and you do, you should probably know something. Your dad’s in town.”

Deaton takes him by the shoulders and pushes him under. Like that, Scott’s whole world shifts to something wet and cold and dark.

 

 

Once upon a time there was a boy in a red sweater that had an equally red hood. His best friend, his only friend, took this boy in his red sweater with its red hood out to find a dead body.

But this boy, he couldn’t breathe without help, and that help fell to the ground while his only friend walked away. He’s stupid and lonely and useless and scared, and tumbles down a hill when he sees the sight of a dead body cut in half. He’s unremarkable when he stands, brushing dirt off his skinned knees and red sweater, and trying to breathe. And he remains unremarkable even when a wolf howls and takes a bite out of his side.

Scott finds the Nemeton folded up inside a fairytale that ends in brainwashing grandfathers, disappeared parents, and human sacrifices.

 

 

Allison wraps a towel around herself and presses beside him against the tub as he tucks her under his arm, even though she thinks he’s wrong. “No, dude, you’re not going back with them,” Stiles says, walking back over and leaning against the one next to them.

Not looking at any of them, even her, Scott answers, “I made a deal with Deucalion.” That boy in there might have been stupid and lonely and useless and scared, but even he understood that when you make a promise, you keep it.

“Does anyone else think that sounds a lot like a deal with the Devil?” his best friend says, looking around with his arms held out, and Scott can feel Allison’s nod against his shoulder.

(he makes a promise to gerard argent that he’ll bring him derek to heal him, but he doesn’t promise not to stop him. the creepy old man tried to make a detailed, one sided promise, but he forgot to write in the fine print.

            scott’s become a big believer in the fine print)

Isaac asks, “Why does it matter anyway?”

“Because I still don’t think we can beat Jennifer without their help.” There are other reasons, the terms and conditions, but Isaac isn’t a terms and conditions kind of guy (his dad made sure of that when he locked him in a freezer and sure, scott’s dad was a drunk and an asshole who didn’t want him but unlike his new boarder, he had a mom to pick up the pieces).

Allison moves her head slightly to turn towards Deaton. “He trusts you more than anyone,” she says. “Tell him he’s wrong.”

To his absolute amazing relief, Deaton answers, “I’m not so sure he is. Circumstances like this sometimes require you align yourself with people you normally consider enemies.”

Suddenly her fingers dig into his sides, which means she’s thinking of the same thing (gerard’s a deal with the devil but scott stuffs him full of mountain ash to survive), and Isaac says, “So we’re just supposed to trust him? The guy who calls himself Death, Destroyer of Worlds? We’re going to trust that guy?”

He’s got trust issues. At least in this case it’s justified. “I wouldn’t trust him, no,” Deaton answers and Scott looks to Lydia, who hasn’t said anything. The look on her face is blank and every so often her heartbeat skips. “But you can use him to your advantage. He may be the enemy, but he can also be the bait.”

That was Scott’s plan to begin with. Before he can say this though, the bell chimes and it’s Ethan, who’s a bit like Jackson—sort of a friend, but more of an enemy. He asks for Lydia, who’s scared. They’re all scared. In a way, Scott’s always been scared, was long before Peter gave him the bite, and maybe that’s what the Nemeton was trying to show him.

Fear’s not his friend, but it’s clung to him as constantly as Stiles. Over a year’s passed and that hasn’t changed.

 

 

For a lot of reasons, Scott never told Allison about his dad. For even more reasons, he never told Isaac either, but now the guy’s here, invading his girlfriend’s home with guns laid out on the table.

Threatening him and his friends is a big step up from not wanting him and he wonders what he did wrong.

Even though he never told her, when he asks, “What are you doing here?” Allison crosses her arms and positions herself in front of him, defiant. This isn’t just because an FBI agent is taking over her territory. Home or not, she’s human and it doesn’t work that way.

His dad’s face stays impassive, which is a huge difference from when Scott was a kid and he was drunk all the time. “Following one of the only leads I have,” he answers. “And since I don’t know where you’ve been, why don’t you have a seat and we can talk? You too, Isaac!”

Isaac comes up next to him and as a second werewolf, he must sense the tension too, because he helps Allison box Scott in. “How do you know my name?”

“Your name’s one of the few things I know,” his dad says, and looks over the weapons again. “To be honest, the rest of what’s going on here has me stumbling in the dark. Even over the smallest clue.”

Except Scott doesn’t need protection. Apparently he’s well on his way to being an Alpha, whether he likes it or not, and that should be proof enough. So he walks past his girlfriend and says, “If you’re trying to tell me you don’t have a clue, I learned that a long time ago,” to act as a shield for them instead.

(six-years-old without stiles, without knowledge of what vodka or whisky is yet. why does daddy smell like cough syrup, mommy? he asks.

            but mommy just smiles and her smiles always make him feel better, even when he’s got questions rumbling through his head. she runs her fingers through his hair and says, how about we go get some custard? you can even have it on a sprinkles cone)

Of course, his dad isn’t amused and he also doesn’t reek of alcohol anymore. “I’d really like to avoid the embarrassment of dragging my own son into an interrogation room.” His sentence is what Lydia would call passive voice. “Really hoping.”

Allison reaches over to take Scott’s hand before he can fight his dad on it, and that’s enough for the three of them to sit. He feels like Stiles, unable to get still.

“I’m not going to lie,” his dad says, “I’m more than a little disturbed not only by the _number_ of missing parents, but the fact that it’s Stiles’ father, your father—” He pauses, looks at Scott. “—and your mother.” He can’t tell if that’s better or worse than hearing him saying Melissa.

Obviously to break some of the tension because they’re both being scary protective, Isaac pops a mint, raises his hand, and says, “Mine are both dead.”

His dad isn’t amused. “Save your cliché teenage apathy for your teachers.” Having dead parents isn’t cliché, or apathy. It’s called bad luck. “The three of you know more than you’re saying and I’m fully willing to keep you here all night if I have to.”

That’s when Scott notices the flash arrowheads.

“You can’t keep us here,” he says (and he can’t figure out how to keep dad with them, or why dad won’t say why he’s leaving or why mom won’t explain, so obviously he doesn’t want scott, which stiles says is bullshit).

“Not without some kind of warrant,” Allison adds.

Leaning on the chair, his dad says, “I’ve got a desk full of probable cause.”

Then she’s pissed and it’s enough for her to go off about weapons. Right as they leave and she sets off the smoke bombs, Scott grabs the flash arrowheads. Deucalion isn’t always blind.

It looks like he just found his loophole.

 

 

Before he leaves with Deucalion, Scott gives Allison a kiss on the cheek. It feels less like a goodbye. “Find our parents,” he says.

“Don’t get yourself killed,” she says.

This is Beacon Hills, not Glen Capri, and he doesn’t intend to.

 

 

They’ve been having sex since they got back together. In that hilariously not hilarious way, they both figure out what their darkness is when they’re practically naked and she’s spread out on top of him.

“What is it?” he asks when she suddenly jumps off him, stumbling when her foot catches on a fallen blanket. “Allison, what’s going on?”

She clutches at her hair, takes a deep breath. “I thought I saw my Aunt Kate,” she says, shaking. “Oh, god. The Nemeton is making me hallucinate.”

All of them have been getting nightmares, so they have a pinpoint for the cause already. So far, seeing her dead aunt was stuck solidly in her dreams. “What caused it?” he says, because stuff like that doesn’t come out of nowhere.

“Scott,” she says, voice dropping low, “ _look in the mirror._ ”

He scrambles out his bed, looks his reflection in the face, and his eyes are a glaringly obvious red. Maybe he’s wrong and this is the Glen Capri all over again, and maybe he should really stay away from fire.

They get dressed silently. Nothing like hallucinations and loss of control to kill the mood.

 

 

“Stiles tells me you had to cut your hands to stop yourself from shifting.”

“My eyes tell me your hand’s shaking.”

(mom hands isaac the keys with shaking hands and asks him to take the car and drive scott to school today. the other boy doesn’t argue, even when scott insists that he’s fine.

            apparently stiles has to scream himself awake and can’t read. allison hallucinates and lost her coordination. scott’s eyes change at random and he tears himself open for control)

Without breaking eye contact, Allison says, “We’re really screwed up.”

It’s not a question, but a fact. “That doesn’t mean we will be forever,” he answers, because Deaton’s been wrong before.

Allison kisses him before turning to go back to class. Until he figures out how to fix himself, that’s all he can do. He feels freshly turned again, stumbling around in the dark without a clue.

 

 

Because they ask, Scott and Stiles follow Allison and Lydia into the woods. Lydia coaches her friend through shooting because Scott’s basically useless where a bow’s concerned, still kind of nervous around them, and it doesn’t take long for him to remember why.

“It was an accident,” Allison says, running over, clearly horrified. “I’m so, so sorry.”

Scott’s holding an arrow inches from his face and he’s quick to hand it back. She stares at it like she doesn’t know what she’s seeing. “Hey, I’m fine,” he says, taking her gently by the upper arms. “Superhuman reflexes, remember? You don’t need to apologize.”

Shaking her head, she says, “Yes, I do. Oh god, that was—I love you. I love you. I’m so, so, _so_ sorry, Scott.”

Really, they should start saying that when they’re in happier situations. Behind her, Lydia and Stiles have gravitated closer together. “I’m fine,” he repeats. “I love you, too. How about we just…go home?”

That night she stays at his house, and her dad probably knows she’s lying when she says she’s at Lydia’s. For the first time ever, they sleep back to back, because he’s not risking his claws making an appearance in the middle of the night.

He wakes up to Allison’s face pressed between his shoulder blades.

 

 

When Kira comes over and Scott knows her name, probably the only thing that saves him is that he and Allison are already very clearly holding each other’s hands.

 

 

Despite the whole “be your own anchor” thing, Mom calls over Allison the moment she kicks out his dad. “He was an alcoholic,” Scott finally tells her and this happens to a lot of people, so he doesn’t get why he’s so reluctant to share the information. “Didn’t hit me, but he wasn’t really, uh, nice, either. Like he acted like it was my fault I had asthma, and he used to say me and Stiles were too dependent on each other. I think he just didn’t like Stiles because he was the only person to ever tell me what was going on wasn’t really right. And then one day he left. No explanation or anything. Mom never told me why.”

She drapes herself over him from behind, chin resting on her shoulder, and they’ve all got more important things to worry about than asshole parents. At least his dad never tried to kill him, he figures, the way her mom did. “Well, then he’s an idiot,” she says. “Scott McCall, you’re practically sunshine. Anyone who hates you doesn’t know what they’re talking about.”

Earlier he almost shifted. She almost shot him. “That was the absolute sappiest thing you’ve ever said,” he tells her and thinks that if he’s sunshine, then she’s starlight. “And if I’m any kind of light, shouldn’t I be moonlight? I’m a werewolf.”

“Shut up. You became an Alpha without killing anyone. Pretty sure that means you’re a contradiction.”

“That doesn’t mean we have to go denying all stereotypes, Allison.”

Even though he can’t really see her face from this angle, he’s pretty sure she smiles at that. Or at least he hopes she smiles. They haven’t been smiling much these days. Neither has Stiles.

But it’s okay, because they could be alone in this, and that’s so much worse.

 

 

“You brought him to the _twins?_ ” his girlfriend says once she finds out, putting down the sedative with her shaking hands. “The psychotic, homicidal, recently-his-enemy twins?”

When he tries to insist he’s fine, the two girls ignore him. “It was Stiles’ idea,” Lydia answers. “I didn’t know what they were going to do to him.”

A month ago if they done this, Scott would still be recovering; now he’s the Alpha and the twins’re the Omegas and it’s just all one big role reversal, when he thinks about it. Allison is wearing the white dress Mom helped him pick out for her seventeenth birthday. “Can we focus on saving the girl whose father is trying to kill her?” he asks, trying to break the tension and he wonders if Allison would be this worked up if they weren’t back together.

(life isn’t a taylor swift breakup song, lydia reminds him over the summer. people _do_ start dating again)

“Don’t look at me,” Stiles says quickly. “He said he needed the help. They were just the only ones around now that _someone_ won’t pick up his phone.”

With a sigh, Allison picks the bottle of tranquilizer to start trying to load the dart again. “Fine,” she says. “Just call me next time you…”

Scott takes the gun out of her hand before she’s even aware she’s holding it. She doesn’t deserve this, he thinks, same as he thought about Stiles earlier in the bathroom at school. She deserves a lot of things, and none of them bad.

 

 

He waits until after the school day ends to tell Allison why their study session needs to be put off. Having her worried is one thing, but worried and pissed just sounds like a nightmare he’s not willing to deal with after that.

Before he can even say anything, she must notice something is wrong because (you have a tell too, scott) she asks, “What’s wrong?” just as they reach her car.

Explaining this is going to be awkward enough as it is, so he jumps straight to it and answers, “Mr. Yukimura invited me over his house for dinner in return for saving Kira from being coyote food.”

Allison stares at him blankly. “Well, it can’t be any worse than the time you ate over my place and got blamed for me stealing that condom,” she says after a moment and she’s seems to be mocking him more than anything else.

“Actually, I did that something from her bag that night,” he tells her because he realizes he never had (dead aunt to secret relationship to manipulative grandfathers overlapping a dead mother doesn’t leave much room for silly anecdotes.

            that’s never been the sort of relationship they have) and he should probably mention it sooner or later. “She’d shot Derek with this special bullet and I needed to steal it back so I could heal him.”

Talking about Derek and Kate prods at a year old wound that never quite managed to scar. Gerard and the breakup left it to fester, but now it’s starting to heal. All fake sympathy and with one side of her mouth twitching into a smile, Allison pats his arm. “Poor Scott McCall. You’re such a good friend,” she says. “Try not to have too much fun at that dinner.”

“He’s my _teacher._ ”

She laughs at his expense and pulls open her car door. “I love you,” she says, and gives him a quick kiss before slipping inside. “I’ll call you if I find something.”

“I love you too,” he answers, and she slams shut the door with a smile.

 

 

When Allison said she’d come along with them to get back Kira’s phone to at least play guard, Scott had been relieved. But now he’s really, really relieved because he’s going to an actual party and gets to arrive with her.

“Paint my body,” she says with a smile, and pulls her shirt over her head.

He has no skill with a brush, but he does his best to draw a wolf running across her side.

 

 

They find Lydia, who’s cold and shaking and keeps repeating his name. Only a few minutes later he hears Derek roar.

Then Isaac says to Allison, “Your dad’s twenty-four hours are up,” and this just got a lot more complicated than a glowing fox shape and human serial killer.

            (things are a lot more complicated than little red riding hood and the big bad wolf now, too, and scott burned that sweater the night he saved his mom)

 

 

Since Scott can’t miss school, he asks Isaac to go with Allison and watch out for her and Mr. Argent just in case. Then he grabs Kira, who might be in danger too, allows the twins to follow because it’s not like they’ll leave him alone, and calls Derek for the hell of it under the grounds that no one starts a fight.

But then the fight comes to them and his dad’s stabbed through the shoulder, and he calls her up without waiting to see where this is going. “Allison, please tell me you’ve got something,” he says when she answers, watching the hooded figures pound against the barrier that he knows isn’t as sound as people seem to think it is. “They’re here, they’re trying to get in—and it looks like they’re going to.”

Isaac is right. Their eyes glow like fireflies.

“ _Okay, okay_ , _listen,_ ” she says quickly and despite everything, he feels some tension release at the sound of her voice. It’s good that she isn’t here. “ _They’re Japanese demons. They’re called the oni. They’re looking for someone possessed, someone with a dark spirit attached to them_ —”

“Nogitsune.”

“ _How do you know that? Scott?_ ”

He glances from the oni in front of him to Kira, who stands there innocently protected by a fox. She doesn’t feel wrong. Not that he’s the best authority, of course. “I’ll tell you later,” he answers. “Just, what else do you know?”

Without pressing for more information, she dives headfirst into explaining they won’t hurt him because he’s not possessed, and he doesn’t say how they stabbed his perfectly human father (maybe they go after assholes too, human or otherwise, and bad parents aren’t demons but both cause nightmares and who knows how this thing’s mind works). “ _Be careful_ ,” she says when she finishes, and hangs up before he can answer.

When he wakes up, weak and cold from the oni, Derek’s kneeling over him, checking the pulse on his neck with callused fingers. Both the twins are telling him it’ll be okay, and Kira’s lying there, alone with her eyes wide, and Scott thinks of Allison and Isaac and Mr. Argent safe several towns over, and Stiles hopefully sleeping soundly in his bed.

Aiden says, “You’re going to be okay,” and Scott rolls over onto his back.

All he wants is for his pack to be okay.

 

 

Allison shows up too late and in tears. “My phone was off,” she says when she finds him, Isaac already getting rushed inside and Stiles missing. “I swear, it was on before I went to bed, I don’t know how that happened.”

He believes her. Even if he couldn’t tell from the sound of her heartbeat, he’d still believe her. “It’s fine,” he tells her, and he feels a little numb because his best friend is sick and the severity of Isaac’s injury is tearing through him as the guy’s Alpha. “I don’t think this would’ve changed if anyone different was here.”

(losing a pack member is like losing a limb, cora said.

            scott isn’t losing isaac)

Apparently he’s failing at his job of reassuring boyfriend because Allison looks, if anything, more upset. “I know you want to find Stiles,” she answers. “How about I—stay here? I’ll look after Isaac and check every so often to make sure my phone’s still on.”

“Tell my mom where I’m going, please,” he says, and wraps her in as tight a hug as he can without hurting her. She hugs him back just as hard, fingertips leaving indents in his back. “Thanks for this, Allison.”

Then she kisses him and sometimes he wonders if she’s making up for lost time, like she’s trying to steal back all those moments from that time they had to keep their relationship hidden or their five months broken up.

“Find Stiles,” she says. “That’ll be thanks enough.”

 

 

Something about the oni blades work like Alpha claws to a Beta, and the wounds take longer to heal. By the time Allison and Lydia show up, Stiles is stretched out on the vet table, unconscious, and Deaton has Scott lying on his back on one of the waiting room couches.

Deaton explains what happened, even if he doesn’t know everything and Scott didn’t want him to in the first place, and Allison sits perched at his side, holding his hand. Hers is small compared to his, and their skin tones clash. “It’s not Stiles,” he says, and his voice sounds hoarse. Lydia has tears slipping down her cheeks and she doesn’t make a sound. “Not really.”

“We’ll get it out of him,” Allison says, and glances at the bloody rip in his shirt revealing the bandage underneath. “You know we will.”

(scott and stiles are twelve, made of gangly limbs and awkward haircuts, and they’re on the same bus to and from school. they talk superheroes and scott’s favorite is captain america while stiles’ batman and in the end it doesn’t matter because they both always save the day. scott and stiles know they will.

            skip four years and suddenly scott finds out that in real life, he’s a fairy tale character, not a superhero, and not all fairy tales have happy endings)

Though she’s very clearly concerned about Scott, too, Lydia’s turned almost all her attention now to Stiles. His friend would like that, if he could see it. Looking up at Allison, he answers, “I know. It’s one of two things that actually makes getting stabbed through the stomach by the thing wearing my best friend’s face bearable.”

“What’s the other?”

“You.”

When she rolls her eyes, he’s pretty sure it’s only the injury that’s stopping him from getting at least a punch in the arm for that. “God, you’re worse than any girl I’ve ever met,” she says.

Everyone’s heart but Lydia’s, who’s crying, is beating steadily, and that includes Stiles. He should’ve been able to tell earlier. He’s supposed to know Stiles better than anyone and in a way, when he thinks about it, he _had_ known and just hadn’t wanted to acknowledge it. Stiles never would’ve asked him to feel someone die.

He makes himself smile, even though it’s faint. “You already knew that,” he says. “I told you about that when we first met.”

To his surprise, she reaches forward and runs her fingers through his hair the same way that Mom does. “Actually the first time we met you gave me a pen,” she tells him. “I still have it.”

“Do you ever think that if it weren’t for that stupid pen we’d be enemies?” he asks because even if she doesn’t, he does.

Now her hand is tangled in his hair and she rubs her thumb in circles near his temple. “I have nightmares about it,” she answers, voice just a whisper now, “but no, I don’t think that pen determined anything. If not the pen then some other way because werewolves exist, Scott. You were right.”

The sharp smell of sadness cuts through her usual scent of just plain Allison mixed with strawberries and sometimes he thinks about how if it weren’t for him, she’d actually have a family, too. Then he remembers Gerard and Kate both tried to get into her head, which is as good of abuse as any, so maybe, okay, she’d have her _mom._ Victoria Argent just thought she was doing the right thing.

(as he stuffs gerard’s pills full of mountain ash, scott reminds himself that he’s doing the right thing)

Before he can say anything, Stiles wakes with a gasp and Lydia throws herself at him, looking absolutely nothing like the girl who ignored them a year ago. His best friend is still weak and disoriented and Allison looks like she wants to get up too but doesn’t, still holding Scott’s hand to keep him from moving too much. She, Stiles, Lydia, Isaac, even Derek to a point—they’re all so damn oblivious.

None of them ever seem to realize he needs them just as much as air.

 

 

“I can’t lose him,” Scott says a few hours after Deaton translates the scroll, lying down on his bed and not even caring that he’s crying. “When we thought he was going to die, I said I’d turn him to keep him alive and he seemed okay with it, but what if I’m wrong? He never wanted to be a werewolf. Never even seem interested.”

Allison stretches out next to him, wearing nothing but one of his shirts and a pair of underwear because she promised to stay the night. The vein of possessiveness inside of him that comes from being a werewolf makes him like that she smells like him. “Well,” she says, sounding like she’s trying to be careful, “I can tell you that if I were in Stiles’ situation, I’d want you to bite me. It’s better than being possessed.”

While he can understand that, it still doesn’t feel right. Stiles just so incredibly human and Scott _loves_ it. “I guess if he said yes when he thought he was dying,” he answers, doubtful. “I don’t want him to go what I went through, though. Derek was born with it, Isaac gave permission. Stiles should be given a choice.”

“What about me?” she asks. “If I were dying, would you do it?”

Purposely, Scott never thought about whether or not he would. The only time the idea ever passed his mind was when he found out that Derek got protective and bit her mom to get her away from him. “I don’t know,” he answers honestly. “If I bit you because you were dying, what would you do?”

She moves closer to him and pulls up the covers with her foot. “I’d be a werewolf.” They both know what he meant. “If I were dying, would you want to bit me?”

This whole conversation is making him sick because Stiles is already missing, Isaac’s in the hospital, and the last thing he wants is to think about Allison dead. But he’s pretty sure that’s the reason behind this in the first place, so he says, “I’d _want_ to do what you think is the right decision for you.”

Though the covers are warm, she’s even warmer when she presses up against his side. “I want anything that lets me be with you.”

Even a werewolf can’t hear a person’s heart break, but he’s pretty sure both of theirs just did.

 

 

Now Scott—well, Scott might be young, but he understands love, and he doesn’t need to be nine-hundred-years-old for that to happen. “Look, you’ve got a good husband, you’ve got a amazing daughter,” he says to Mrs. Yukimura, watching as she and Kira remake the broken sword (he thought katanas were cool once, he did, but now he can’t look at one without imagining the sharp slide of it fitting through his skin and nestling in his organs, shoved there by a thing wearing the face of his friend), “but I _can’t_ lose Stiles, the nogitsune puts my whole pack at risk—which yeah, includes the girl I love. So can you please skip the stalling and get to the part where I can save his life from the thing you let lose seventy years ago _before_ it kills everyone Stiles cares about?”

Normally he isn’t this mean, but he’s starting to fray around the edges, and doesn’t know how much longer he can last. He can take Peter, he can take Kate, he can take Jackson. Hell, he could even take Gerard. But he can’t take this. And he might say that darkness is gone, and he might be able to control himself, but it’s like Deaton said. That darkness is wrapped around him together, as clingy as the metallic smell on Allison’s fingers. Or powered sugar. Or fear.

Mrs. Yukimura just looks at him, unimpressed. “History is repeating itself,” she says. “I made a mistake, Scott, but if I could not defeat the nogitsune, then neither can you.”

“Why? Because we’re teenagers?” he answers. “What good is history if you can’t learn from it?”

(he has nightmares about stiles losing his mind, about blades running through lydia or allison. before this he had nightmares about his girlfriend’s arrows finding their mark in his body.

            what good is history if you can’t learn from it? allison changed her family and the only time he’s ever been drunk was forced by wolfsbane. they killed kate and kissed by the light of his alpha’s burning body. if anyone can defy history, it’s them, slim chance of it or not)

He holds Mrs. Yukimura’s gaze, channeling every ounce of that werewolf leadership he still isn’t comfortable with even though he knows she’s got to be too old and too powerful to back down. “They’re my friends, Mom,” Kira says, and he’s relieved for the backup. “At least show _me_ the respect of trying to save their lives.”

Sure, it might not work, he acknowledges that, and even if it does, there’s a good chance there’ll be casualties he can’t avoid. But Scott’s an optimist, the sunshine to Allison’s stardust, and even if everyone else is losing hope, at least he should be holding on.

 

 

Isaac had stumbled in last night, weird but passing it off by saying he started healing all at once and hadn’t wanted to scare the nurses. Now Scott’s cursing himself, thinking about how he _should have known_ , because he’s the guy’s Alpha. Instead he and Allison were so wrapped up in each other they couldn’t think straight, still too horrified that he was late, and the nogitsune got away.

“I’ll find him,” his girlfriend promises and kisses his cheek because this is dangerous, and that feels like less of a goodbye. “You and Lydia focus on helping on Stiles.”

“Be careful.”

“You too.”

 

 

Only a day ago, Lydia told him Allison was going to France, but suddenly she’s on his doorstep, hands in her pockets, and looking all bashful and kind of scared. I changed my mind, she tells him. Me, go to Europe? I don’t want to leave you, Scott.

            This is so amazing he can barely believe it, but here she is anyway. Does this mean we aren’t breaking up? he blurts out, which is probably the worst possible question. Allison, are we still—

            Together? If you’re willing to take me back.

            He’s grinning no, so wide his face might split apart, which is gross but he wouldn’t even care because she wants him. Allison Argent, the girl he loves, here on his doorstep telling him she’s not leaving. I wasn’t lying when I said I’d wait for you, he answers. Werewolves exist, so fate can too, right?

            Allison laughs. You and me, Scott. Everything is going to be okay.

            Suddenly a void from very far away calls, Jackson!

“ _Lydia!_ ”

            Scott blinks, looks around from Allison to everything around him, examining the world more closely because that was Lydia and Peter. _Lydia and Peter._ They’re _important._ You cut your hair, he says. You left for France, you came back with a haircut. We got back together months later in a closet.

            Even as he says it, she just seems so devastated he wishes he could take it back. But then comes again, “ _Lydia!_ ” and he turns, Allison’s outstretched hand just missing him when she goes to grab his shirt. He pushes open the front door of his house and ends up in a white room.

 

 

“We’ll find her,” Scott says when Allison comes over. Mom’s giving Stiles’ new body a checkup for injuries. “I promise.”

When Allison hugs him, her whole body is shaking. “I know we will,” she mumbles into his shoulder. “We’re a pack, and packs stay together. But that doesn’t make it any easier.”

(back in the beginning, there was scott and stiles, and then there was scott, stiles and allison, but along with allison came lydia, so it was actually scott, stiles, allison, and lydia. jackson was a tagalong who hated them, didn’t count, and over time lydia gravitated to become one of his closest friends, too. in the end, anyone can slide in but they’re the four that make up the glue of it, and he can’t even imagine the vacuum it would leave if he lost one of them. the thought is too much to handle)

Again, he says, “I promise,” and hopes he isn’t a liar.

 

 

The hint was _coup de foudre_ , which means he really should’ve known better. Now Allison is dying, dying at seventeen, and it isn’t beautiful. “Did you find her?” she asks. “Is she okay? Is she safe?”

(he’s little red riding hood, and she’s the woodsman, but he can’t return the favor and save her too)

He brushes her hair out of her face, gently as he can, and says, “Yeah, she safe,” before moving his arm down again to take her hand. “I—I can’t. I can’t take your pain.”

“That’s because it doesn’t hurt.”—(and he doesn’t get it, not really, how clearly she’s talking while the blood gathers in the corner of her mouth. she’s dying at seventeen and he never should have given her that pen)

Underneath the horrible smell of blood, there’s still a layer of strawberry shampoo and it leaves him dizzy, but he just shakes his head. “No,” he says, already feeling lost and far away even though she’s the one who’s dying because he’s a wolf, territorial, which means she’s _his_ , and there’s a part of him that’s disappearing too.

“It’s okay.”

“Allison—”

Even though he doesn’t understand how she does it, she smiles, and he guesses she was always stronger than him anyway. “It’s okay,” she says again, then repeats, “It’s okay, it’s okay. It’s perfect.” Her skin’s starting to go from warm to cold. “I’m in the arms of the one I love. The one I’ll always love. I love you, Scott—Scott McCall.”

And he’s about to answer, about to say how much he loves her too, when he remembers that conversation in his bedroom about Stiles and what she said. So he leans forward, so close their foreheads are almost touching, and says, “I hope you meant it,” before bending down further and biting her shoulder.

She doesn’t scream.

 

 

To his surprise, Mr. Argent doesn’t seem particularly angry with him. After all, Scott’s not even sure if he should be angry with himself, and considering their history, it would make sense.

(it was an accident, derek says)

He knows he should let it be, at least right now, but he’s got to ask. “I got her permission first, if that help,” he says. “What are you going to do?”

There’s a moment where Mr. Argent just doesn’t do anything. Then, even more shockingly, Scott’s suddenly pulled into a hug. “I was wrong about my wife,” he answers. “Thank you for saving the only family I have.”

Suddenly Scott’s crying, the stress too hard to deal with, and behind him Lydia’s leaning heavily of Stiles, both watching over Allison, who’s still unconscious (everyone says not all people who get the bite survive, but he knows she will). “It’s okay,” Mr. Argent’s saying, which is stupid because that was his daughter who was just bitten, which means he’s the one who should be getting the reassurance now. “You go get the nogitsune for me. I’ll watch over her until she wakes up. You did what you could.”

It’s more encouraging than Scott expects and when he gets himself under control he moves away, wipes across his eyes with the back of his hand and feels like a little kid. “Thanks,” he says. “For not hating me.”

“If you get this thing,” Mr. Argent tells him, putting a hand on his shoulder, “I promise I won’t even embarrass you during next family dinner, got it? Now hurry up, Scott, you and your friends have work to do.”

Biting Allison wasn’t an ideal chose, but it means she’s alive and in the end, that’s what matters.

 

 

Allison woke up with just enough time to tell her dad about the arrowheads, which gave the rest of them the advantage to save Stiles, but not enough to save Aiden. Lydia cries hard in Stiles’ arms, and he just kind of holds her like he doesn’t know what else to do. That’s when Scott gets the call about his mom.

Even though she can’t be all the way healed, it’s obvious the whole werewolf gene stuck because Allison’s at the hospital waiting for him. So’s his dad, who he hasn’t thought about since the conversation where he found out that Mom kicked the guy out because he knocked Scott down the stairs, and his girlfriend looks ready to punch him when he gets a grip on his shoulders. “Melissa’s fine,” his dad says and Scott’s not really inclined to believe him, but some of the tension leaves his body anyway. “One of the doctors here is just stitching up the cut. Stiles’ dad’ll be okay, too.”

From behind him, Allison suddenly says, “Scott,” and her voice is softer than he’s heard in a long time. “Scott, what happened?”

Stiles is surveying the damage, his face white with shock, and Lydia still clings to him (and she mumbles, it’s not your fault, it’s not your fault, so quiet no one can hear, and of course it _isn’t_ his fault, but it’s not like he’s going to believe her), still in shock herself over Aiden. “It’s just—” Scott starts to say, but stops because his dad’s here and doesn’t understand anything. “It’s just been a really, really long day.”

“Come back to my place,” she tells him, taking him by the shoulders, pulling him away from his dad. “You heard him, your mom is fine. You, me, Stiles, Lydia—we’ll wait it out, okay?”

Her eyes are big and brown, face still pale from blood loss and he still can’t believe she’s a werewolf now. That he actually did that. Is she mad? Did she really mean what she said in his bedroom? He hopes so. After all of this, after managing to save Stiles and keep her alive but still not getting there in time to save Aiden, he can’t lose her. It’s selfish, and yeah, maybe he could, but he can’t think about that right now.

Over her shoulder, he watches as Stiles turns his head and presses his face into Lydia’s hair, his shoulders shaking (i’ve had a crush on her since the third grade, man). “We’re going to Allison’s,” Scott says when they reach them. “Our parents will call us when the doctors are done checking them out.”

Even though Lydia’s mom is fine, off somewhere probably worrying about her daughter, she comes without complaint. Mr. Argent drives them, gives them places to sleep, and turns a blind eye when Scott and Allison end up in her bed together, asleep before they even make it under the covers.

 

 

Because of those hunters after him, Ethan has to leave without giving his brother a proper funeral. He stops by with just enough time to tell them goodbye and, oh yeah, apparently Danny’s known the whole time.

“I’m better at keeping secrets than you are,” he says to Stiles while Scott teaches Malia and Allison how to control themselves. His hunter girlfriend is much better at being a werewolf so far than he is, even if they haven’t had a full moon together yet. “Seriously, my best friend was Jackson. Did you _really_ think he didn’t give me a heads up before leaving for London?”

Lydia reclines on the hood of Stiles’ Jeep, sipping at some sparkling water grape flavored thing that smells like decongestant, and Allison cheers when her claws come out, throwing her arms around Scott. “I’m a banshee and Kira’s a kitsune,” Lydia tells him. “In case you were wondering.”

“Everyone has an anchor, right?” Allison says, and Scott nods. “You’re going to be my anchor, just like I’m yours.”

Sometimes they don’t make any sense, or they don’t to other people but they to themselves, and he knows lycanthropy wasn’t her first choice as a way of life, but she’s warm and solid in his arms as he kisses her. Danny asks, “What’s a kitsune?” and Malia laughs at something Scott can’t see. Derek and Isaac are on their way, off making a quick stop at the CVS to pick up a large bag of pretzel M&Ms and Kira can’t make it because she’s taking today as an effort to reconnect with her mom. There’s a hole left where Ethan and Aiden were that no one expected, but it’s slowly healing.

            (scott needs his pack like he needs air, and sure it’s been hard, but at least he’s breathing)

**Author's Note:**

> I've never written anything so stupidly romantic before. Actually I've never written anything where romance is the main plot. I hope I did their relationship justice.


End file.
